Chapter II: Part 2

“In truth, this is no life!” angrily exclaimed Anselm. “To sit at a banquet one may not taste with a wife who cannot see one’s jokes. I can bear it no longer. Why should not I seek this strange woman and make the same bargain? If husband and wife may not share their jokes, they must at least share their dinner. Tell me quickly where I may find this ‘Bargain House.’”

Jasmine told her husband the way through the deep, dark forest, and early the next morning he set forth in search of the mysterious building. An hour’s walking brought him within sight of just such a house as his wife had described. It moved nearer, sped three times around him and then stood still. As he stared at it, the door slowly opened, the gentle, commanding voice bade him enter, and there stood the tall, smiling woman of his wife’s description.

“Good morning, Anselm,” she said, in the voice that was soft like the fall of snow. “Would you have a purse that shall always bear a thousand guineas?”

“Indeed I would!” cried Anselm. “Have you one for me?”

“Yes, if you consent to my terms.”

“What is it that you want? My Sense of Humour? Of what use is it to me now? I will gladly part with it.”

“No,” said the woman. “’Tis not your Sense of Humour I require of you, it is your Sense of Beauty.”

“Take what you will from me,” cried Anselm. “I care not so I have one of those wondrous purses.”

“Listen first, Anselm,” said the woman, and solemnly, as she had warned Jasmine, so she warned him that the magic money could be spent on none save himself, and that the sense he sold could be bought back only by the owner of such another purse.

“Remember, you can never reclaim it yourself,” she repeated.

“I care not! I care not!” exclaimed Anselm. “Quick, the purse!”

“Come hither,” said the woman, “and close your eyes.” Gently she touched him on both eyelids, and drew forth his Sense of Beauty. Then she handed him a red-tasselled bag exactly the same as Jasmine’s and as heavy with golden guineas.

“Now farewell, Anselm. Go forth into a bleak world.”

Wild with joy and excitement, Anselm dashed from the Bargain House and hastened through the deep, dark forest to that part of the city where dwelt the grandest merchants. Here he bought gorgeous apparel, costly wines, and magnificent horses. Astride the finest of the horses, a gleaming chestnut, said to be the swiftest steed alive, he then rode home through the forest. As he went, he met an old man clad in wretched rags, who looked very hungry and tired. Feeling pleased with life Anselm plunged his hand into the magic purse, and, drawing forth a golden guinea, flung it at the poor man, who joyfully stooped to pick it up. But no sooner had his hand touched the coin than it vanished. Anselm remembered the woman’s warning.

“Sorry, my good fellow,” he said, shamefacedly handing the beggar two coppers—all that he could find in his old purse.

“Thanks, noble master. Now I can buy bread for my supper. I never thought to eat to-night.”

“For one who sups on dry bread you look strangely cheerful,” said Anselm. “At what can you rejoice?”

“’Tis the beauty of the sunset, master. It seems to warm my heart. Never have I seen one like to it in glory. Who could look and not be comforted?”

And, in truth, a radiant smile lit up the old man’s suffering face as he gazed on the flaming splendours of the western sky. Anselm turned and looked where the beggar pointed, but he could see nothing that seemed worth the turning of the head, and with a shrug of the shoulders he rode home.

Now Jasmine, rejoicing that Anselm would share her feasting, arrayed herself that she might look her fairest for their banquet. She brushed her red-gold hair until it shone, and gazed at herself in the mirror until her beauty glowed. Then she attired herself in a dress of dragon-flies’ wings, covered all over with hearts made of tiny little diamonds like dewdrops.

“Never, never have I looked so fair. When Anselm sees me he will love me more than ever. How joyfully we shall feast together, and how glad am I that he will no longer want me to laugh at the things he says! I shall love him far more without his Sense of Humour.”

Her heart beat as she heard footsteps hastening up the stairs. Radiant with excitement in burst Anselm. “I’m rich!” he cried. “Rich! rich! Rejoice with me, Jasmine.”

Grey disappointment crushed into Jasmine’s heart, for not one word did her husband say of her especial beauty or her wonderful dress.

“There’s nothing like wealth!” he cried. “How did we ever endure our poverty? And fancy, I met a beggar-man, who said he was cheerful because he looked at the sunset! Ha! ha! ha!”

“Why do you laugh, Anselm? Have you then not sold your Sense of Humour? How came you then by that purse?”

“No. I may still laugh. I have but parted with my Sense of Beauty.”

“Your Sense of Beauty?” echoed Jasmine, icy fear entering her heart. “Is that why your eyes no longer seek my face?”

“Why ever do you look so doleful?” laughed Anselm. “Let us hasten down and feast. My lips thirst for the wines I have bought.”

Trembling, Jasmine pleaded: “Look on my face, husband, the face you have so often called your glory. What think you of my face to-night?”

“Your face? Let me look. It seems all right: two eyes, one nose, one mouth. Yes, it seems just as other faces are.”

It was with a sad heart poor Jasmine sat at the feast that night. Loving her husband, she rejoiced to see him revel, but that he should no longer gaze at her with the admiration which had been her delight was pain past bearing. Anselm enjoyed his feasting, but the wine made jokes rise in his mind, to flutter from his lips, and it vexed him that no smile ever widened his wife’s mouth, set for ever in still solemnity.

Days, weeks, months passed. Anselm and Jasmine now lived in a gorgeous palace. They were clad in the finest raiment and they feasted like emperors, but in their hearts all was becoming as dust and ashes.

“Ah me!” sighed Jasmine. “I know now why it was that I longed for wealth. It was that I might add to my beauty and see even more admiration in my beloved’s eyes. Of what use to me are my gorgeous gowns, my jewels, my flower-like face, since Anselm no longer delights to see me.”

And for Anselm the pleasures of feasting and luxurious living soon palled. His wife could not laugh at his jokes, and in the wide world there was nothing for him to admire. Neither sunsets, nor courage, nor self-sacrifice. He could see no beauty in any face, thought or action. Lost to him were the delights of Poetry and all the loveliness of Nature.

“What is there in life,” he cried, “but feasting and laughter? If only Jasmine could join with me in mocking at the absurdities of Man!”

Desperately he strove to restore laughter to his mirthless wife. He engaged a thousand jesters and promised a fortune to him who should make her laugh. Everything human beings consider funny was shown to her. Orange peel was plentifully scattered outside the palace windows, and aged men encouraged to walk past, that they might step on the orange peel and fall. Then, by means of huge bellows purposely placed, their hats were blown from off their heads, in the hope that Jasmine would smile to see the poor old fellows vainly chasing their own headgear. But all in vain. Nothing amused Jasmine, neither physical misfortune nor the finest wit. Her mouth remained set. Daily Anselm laughed louder and longer, but into his laughter an ugly bitterness had come. It was now the laughter of mockery, no longer softened by admiration.

During that summer a child was born to Jasmine. For years she had longed for a baby, but now that the funny little creature squirmed in her arms, yawning, and making faces, she thought it merely ugly and turned from it in disgust.

A few months later the coachman’s wife gave birth to a baby, and Jasmine went to visit her. She found her by the fire, nursing a red, hairless, wrinkled daughter that seemed to Jasmine the ugliest morsel in all the world. In speechless horror she stared at it. Opening wide its shapeless mouth, the baby stretched its tiny arms and gave a great yawn. With a joyful laugh, the mother clutched it to her heart. “Oh, you darling, darling!” she cried. “Could anyone not love anything so _funny_?”

“Is Love then born of Laughter?” cried poor Jasmine, and, full of bitter envy, she rushed from the room.

That same year a terrible war was waged and thousands of soldiers went forth to die. One day, Jasmine gazed out of the window. Brave music was playing, and with colours flying, a gallant host of youths marched past, their weeping mothers and sweethearts waving farewell.

“A disgusting sight, is it not?” said Anselm. “All these boys striding off to be killed simply because their foolish kings have quarrelled!”

“Yes,” replied Jasmine, her eyes full of tears. “But beautiful, too.”

“Beautiful?” jeered her husband with a harsh, discordant laugh. “You fool! What beauty can there be in senseless sacrifice?” And, as now often happened, these two fell into loud and bitter wrangling.

Thus daily life became more and more unbearable to Anselm and Jasmine. In spite of all their wealth, boredom pressed heavily upon them. Since she could not laugh, and he could not admire, to both the world seemed full of senseless suffering.

“I can no longer bear this life,” said Jasmine, one day. “Of what use is the beauty to which Anselm is blind? I will seek the Bargain House and buy back the Sense he sold. He will still have his purse with which to buy the luxuries he loves.” And forth she went into the deep, dark forest.

An hour later, Anselm exclaimed:

“I can no longer bear this life. I will buy back Jasmine’s humour that at least we may together mock at this senseless life. She will still have her purse to buy the fineries she loves.” And forth he went into the deep, dark forest.

That evening Jasmine returned without her magic purse, rejoicing that her husband would once more delight in her beauty. She went to say good night to her little son, who lay in his cot, struggling to draw his tiny toes up into his mouth. The window was open. Suddenly he stretched forth his arms towards the shining moon. It looked so good to suck; he longed to grasp it. He struggled and bubbled and clutched, his crinkled face growing crimson with effort. How funny he looked! Suddenly, Jasmine found herself laughing—laughing—laughing until her whole body shook, and happy peals broke through her astonished lips. “Oh, you darling, darling little joke,” she cried, joyfully kissing her child.

At that moment in rushed Anselm, and stood transfixed at the dazzling beauty of his wife.

“Jasmine, Jasmine,” he cried, “what has happened. Why are you so dazzlingly beautiful?”

“Because I have no longer a magic purse. I have bought you back your Sense, husband.”

“You too?” cried Anselm; “and I have bought back your laughter.”

“Then we are both poor! Oh, how funny!” cried Jasmine, her laughter growing louder and louder as they fell into one another’s arms.

Thus Anselm and Jasmine parted with their magic purses, and had to work for their daily bread, but they lived happily ever afterwards in a world that was blessedly beautiful and blessedly funny.

The Joyous Ballad of the Parson and the Badger

HENRY NEWBOLT

Not far from Guildford town there lies
A house called Orange Grove,
And there his trade a Parson plies,
Whom all good people love.

Sing up, sing down, for Guildford town,
And sing for the Parson too!
I’ll wager a penny you’ll never find any
That’s more of a sportsman true.

A neighbour came in haste one day
With a piteous tale to tell,
But “A badger, a badger,” was all he could say,
When they answered the front door bell.

Sing in, sing out, there’s a badger about,
Send word to the County Police.
He’s playing the dickens with all the spring chickens,
And gobbling up the geese.

Forth to the fray the Parson goes
Beneath the midnight sky,
He threads the wood on the tip of his toes
And he climbs a fir-tree high.

Sing never a word, it’s quite absurd
To expect a badger to come
And sit to be shot like a bottle or pot
To the sound of an idiot’s hum!

The clock has struck both twelve and one,
His eyes are heavy as lead,
He heartily wishes the deed were done
And himself at home in bed.

Sing ho! Sing hey! the badger’s away,
The Parson’s up the tree:
It’s horribly damp and he’s got the cramp
And there’s nothing at all to see.

The clock struck two, and then half-past,
The day began to break;
The badger came back to his earth at last
And found our friend awake.

Sing boom and bang! the welkin rang,
The Parson, “Hurrah!” he cried:
The badger lay there with his legs in the air
And an ounce of shot inside.

Happy at heart, though in pitiful plight,
The victor crawled away;
He slept the sleep of the just all night
And half of the following day.

Sing loud and strong, sing all day long,
Sing Yoicks! and Hullabaloo!
But I’ve had enough of this doggerel stuff
And so, I should think, have you!

To Enid
who acted the
Cat
in private Pantomime

G. K. CHESTERTON

Though cats and birds be hardly friends,
We doubt the Maeterlinckian word
That must dishonour the White Cat,
Even to honour the Blue Bird.

And if once more in later days
His baseless charge the Belgian brings,
Great ghosts shall rise to vindicate
The right of cats to look at kings.

The Lord of Carabas shall come
In gold and ermine, silk and furs,
To tell of that immortal cat
That wore its boots and won its spurs.

THE LORD OF CARABAS SHALL COME
IN GOLD AND ERMINE, SILK AND FURS,
TO TELL OF THAT IMMORTAL CAT
THAT WORE ITS BOOTS AND WON ITS SPURS

Great Whittington shall show again
The state that London lends her Lord,
Where the great golden griffins bear
The blazon of the Cross and Sword.

And hear the ancient bells anew,
And talk and not ignobly brag
What glorious fortunes followed when
He let the cat out of the bag.

And Gray shall leave the graves of Stoke
To weep over a gold-fish bowl—
Cowper, who, beaming at his cat,
Forgot the shadow on his soul.

Then shall I rise and name aloud
The nicest cat I ever knew,
And make the fairy fancies pale
With half a hundred tales of you:

Till Pasht upon his granite throne
Glare with green eyes to hear the news
Jealous; and even Puss in Boots
Will wish that he were in your shoes.

When I shall pledge in saucers full
Of milk, on which the kitten thrives,
Feline felicities to you
And nine extremely prosperous lives.

Scenes in the Life of a Princess

CHARLES WHIBLEY

_Ashridge_

When Queen Mary was persuaded, falsely, that her throne could be made safe only by the death of her sister, then but eighteen years old, the Princess Elizabeth lay sick at Ashridge. One spring morning, as she tossed abed, ’twixt sleeping and waking, in the weariness of fever, she heard in the courtyard beneath her window the tramp of men, the clatter of horses’ hoofs. Her affrighted servants brought her word that a guard of two hundred and fifty horsemen attended the Lords, who came with messages from the Queen, a guard larger than enough to keep watch over so frail a Princess. The house being thus begirt, Lord Thame and his companions, thrust their way into the presence of the Princess. To her demand that if not for courtesy, yet for modesty’s sake, they should put off the delivery of their message till the morrow, they answered that their commission was to bring her to London, alive or dead.

“A sore commission,” said the Princess, but a commission not to be gainsaid. And the Queen’s doctors showed her little pity. She might be removed, said they, not without danger, yet without death.

So on the morrow, the sad cavalcade set forth. The Princess, that she might be the more darkly shielded from the public gaze, was borne in the Queen’s own litter, which she presently bade to be opened, and thus she made her progress to Whitehall in the full view of the people. It was a tedious and a painful journey. From Ashridge, by St. Alban’s, she came to South Mymms, where again she rested her weary body, and not until four suns had set did she reach the inhospitable Court of Mary, her Queen and her sister.

_Whitehall_

When she came to Whitehall, she was still a prisoner. It was as though she carried her dungeon with her. Whitehall was less kind even than the white high road, where at least she had found solace in the pity of the humble folk, who wept as she passed, and offered prayers for her safety. Fourteen days she spent in unfriended seclusion, with “no comfort but her innocence, no companion but her book.” Not for her the freedom of the open air, the chatter of tongues, the laughter of friends. Her oft-repeated request to see her sister fell upon the deaf ears of her jailers. A princess of less courage would have quailed before the ill-omened silence which enwrapped her. And how could she hope to regain the Queen’s affection, so long as the cunning servants of the Emperor and the King of France, Renard and Noailles, were there to distil the poison of hate and dread in Queen Mary’s ear?

Knowing well that her foes were the Queen’s friends, her friends the Queen’s foes, she was still of a stout heart. When Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, resolute to entrap her, urged her to confess and to submit herself to the Queen’s Majesty, “submission,” said she proudly, “confessed a crime, and pardon belonged to a delinquent.” For her part she had no crime to confess, and she asked no pardon. So for her temerity she was told that two hundred Northern Whitecoats should guard her lodging that night, and that in the morn she should be secretly conveyed to the Tower, without her household, there to be kept a close prisoner.

_The Tower_

It was a Palm Sunday when she set forth, under a guard, to that place of ill-omen, the Tower of London. Hers was no triumphal progress; neither palm nor willow was carried in her honour. And well might she dread the journey, which she was forced to make. Within the dark walls of the Tower her mother had laid her fair head down upon the block; and what cause had she to hope for a happier destiny? As she left Whitehall, to her a place of durance, she looked up to the window of the Queen’s bedchamber, hoping there to see some mark of favour, some signal of affection. The hope was vain, and in cold despair she came to the Stairs, where the barges awaited her. When she reached the Tower, she was bidden to enter at the Traitor’s Gate, which at first she refused, and then stepping short so that her foot fell into the water, she spake these words to her obdurate jailer:

“Here landeth as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs, since Julius Cæsar laid the first foundations of the Tower.”

The Constable, a wry-faced ruffian, lurched forth savagely to receive her, and in a harsh voice told her that he would show her her lodging. Then she, being faint, “sat down,” we are told, “upon a fair stone, at which time there fell a great shower of rain: the heavens themselves did seem to weep at such inhuman usage.”

SCENES IN THE LIFE OF A PRINCESS

“They answered that their commission was to bring her to London, alive
or dead.”
]

_Drawn for “The Flying Carpet”
by H. M. Brock_

Presently she was locked and bolted in the Tower; her own servants were taken from her; to open her casement, that she might enjoy the fresh air of heaven, to walk in the garden—these were pleasures denied her. One sole thing was constantly demanded of her, that she should confess herself a rebel and submit herself to the Queen. Nobly did she refuse, and was left to silence and her own proud thoughts.

_Hampton Court_

She changed her prison, and kept unchanged her high courage. From the Tower she was carried to Woodstock. But what mattered it where the dungeon lay? The locks and bolts were no more easily burst asunder at Woodstock than at the Tower. And then of a sudden her keeper was bidden to bring her to Hampton Court, not as a free Princess, but as a guarded malefactor. At Colnbrook, where on the way she sojourned at the sign of the George, certain gentlemen, devoted to her service, came to do her homage. Instantly, at the Queen’s command, they were sent about their business, and the Princess was bidden to enter Hampton Court, without an escort, and by the back gate, like the humblest menial. Again for many days she was left solitary and in silence, when she was summoned one night into the presence of the Queen, her sister, whose heavy hand she had felt unceasingly, whose face she had not seen for two long years. The Queen, sitting on her chair of State, took up her promise of loyalty sharply and shortly.

“Then you will not confess yourself,” said she, “to be a delinquent, I see, but stand peremptorily upon your truth and innocence; I pray God they may so fall out.”

To which the Princess replied: “If not, I neither require favour nor pardon at your Majesty’s hands.”

“Well,” said the Queen, “then you stand so stiffly upon your faith and loyalty, that you suppose yourself to have been wrongfully punished and imprisoned.”

“I cannot,” replied the Princess, “nor must not say so to you.”

“Why then belike,” retorted the Queen, “you will report it to others.”

“Not so,” said the Princess. “I have borne and must bear the burden myself.”

The two sisters never met again, but the Princess’s courage in facing her fate was not in vain. Thenceforth she was eased of her imprisonment, and went to Ashridge in free custody, where she remained at her pleasure, until Queen Mary’s death.

_A Progress through London_

In 1558 the Queen died, and the Princess Elizabeth, justified of her patience and her courage, was proclaimed Queen of England. In the loyal enthusiasm of her subjects, who had long since acclaimed her in their hearts, the years of solitude and imprisonment were forgotten. To the Tower, which she had left a captive, she returned a monarch, and passed in triumph through her City of London to Westminster. Everywhere she was welcomed by pageants and loyal discourse, until she came to the famous Abbey where she was crowned, to the contentment of her loyal lieges and to the honour and glory of her realm.

Neil and Tintinnabulum

AN INTERLUDE FOR PARENTS

BY J. M. BARRIE

1. _Early Days_

In writing a story a safe plan must be to imitate your favourite author. Until he was nine, when he abandoned the calling, Neil was my favourite author, and I therefore decide to follow his method of dividing the story into short chapters so as to make it look longer.

When he was nine I took him to his preparatory, he prancing in the glories of the unknown until the hour came for me to go, “the hour between the dog and the wolf,” and then he was afraid. I said that in the holidays all would be just as it had been before, but the newly-wise one shook his head; and on my return home, when I wandered out unmanned to look at his tool-shed, I found these smashing words in his writing pinned to the door:

THIS ESTABLISHMENT IS NOW PERMANENTLY CLOSED.

I went white as I saw that Neil already understood life better than I did.

Soon again he was on the wing. Here is interesting autobiographical matter I culled years later from the fly-leaf of his _Cæsar_: “Aetat 12, height 4 ft. 11, biceps 8¼, kicks the beam at 6-2.”

The reference is to a great occasion when Neil stripped at his preparatory (clandestinely) for a Belt with the word “Bruiser” on it. I am reluctant to boast about him (this is untrue), yet must mention that he won the belt, with which (such are the ups and downs of life) he was that same evening gently belted by his preceptor.

It is but fair to Neil to add that he cut a glittering figure in those circles: captain of the footer, and twenty-six against Juddy’s.

“And even then,” his telegram to me said, “I was only bowled off my pads.”

A rural cricket match in buttercup time with boys at play, seen and heard through the trees; it is surely the loveliest scene in England and the most disarming sound. From the ranks of the unseen dead, for ever passing along our country lanes on their eternal journey, the Englishman falls out for a moment to look over the gate of the cricket field and smile. Let Neil’s 26 against Juddy’s, the first and perhaps the only time he is to meet the stars on equal terms, be our last sight of him as a child. He is walking back bat in hand to the pavilion, an old railway carriage. An unearthly glory has swept over the cricket ground. He tries to look unaware of it; you know the expression and the bursting heart. Our smiling Englishman who cannot open the gate waits to make sure that this boy raises his cap in the one right way (without quite touching it, you remember), and then rejoins his comrades. Neil gathers up the glory and tacks it over his bed. “The End,” as he used to say in his letters.

I never know him quite so well again. He seems henceforth to be running to me on a road that is moving still more rapidly in the opposite direction.

2. _The First Half_

The scene has changed. Stilled is the crow of Neil, for he is now but one of the lowliest at a great public school, where he reverberates but little. The scug Neil fearfully running errands for his fag-master is another melancholy reminder of the brevity of human greatness.

Lately a Colossus he was now infinitely less than nothing. What shook him was not the bump as he fell, but the general indifference to his having fallen. He lay there like a bird in the grass winded by a blunt-headed arrow, and was cold to his own touch. The Bruiser Belt and his score against Juddy’s had accompanied him to school on their own legs, one might say, so confident were they of a welcome from his mantelshelf, but after an hour he hid them beneath the carpet. Hidden by him all over that once alluring room, as in disgrace, were many other sweet trifles that went to the making of the flame that had been Neil; his laugh was secreted, say in the drawer of his desk; his pranks were stuffed into his hat-box, his fell ambitions were folded away between two pairs of trousers, and now and then a tear would mix with the soapy water as he washed his cheerless face.

In that dreadful month or more I am dug up by his needs and come again into prominence, gloating because he calls for me, sometimes unable to do more than stand afar off on the playing field, so that he may at least see me nigh though we cannot touch. The thrill of being the one needed, which I had never thought to know again. I have leant over a bridge, and enviously watching the gaiety of two attractive boys, now broken to the ways of school, have wished he was one of them, till I heard their language and wondered whether this was part of the necessary cost.

Leaden-footed Neil in the groves that were to become so joyous to him. He had to refashion himself on a harsher model, and he set his teeth and won, blaming me a little for not having broken to him the ugly world we can make it. One by one his hidden parts peeped out from their holes and ran to him, once more to make his wings; stronger wings than of yore, though some drops of dew had to be shaken off.

By that time my visits were being suffered rather than acclaimed. It was done with an exquisite politeness certainly, but before I was out of sight he had dived into some hilarious rumpus. Gladly for his sake I knew my place.

His first distinct success was as a gargler.

“You remember how I used to hate gargling at home,” says an early letter, “and you forced me to do it. Jolly good thing you did force me.” His first “jolly” at that school. At once I began to count them.

“Everyone has to gargle just now,” he continues, “and we all do it at the same time, and it must sound awfully rum to people passing along the street. We generally gargle a song, and there was a competition in ‘Home, sweet Home’ among the scugs at m’ tutor’s, and the judge said I gargled it longest.”

Soon afterwards he had the exultation of being recognised as an entity by one of the masters.

“I was walking with Dolman mi.,” his letter says, “and we met a new beak called Tiverley and he pretended to fence with me and said ‘Whose incomparable little noodle are you?’” This, apparently, was all that happened, but Neil adds with obvious elation, “It was awfully decent of him.” (Hail to thee, Tiverley, may “a house” anon be thy portion for heartening a new boy in the dwindling belief that he exists.)

Dolman mi. evidently had no run on this occasion, but he is older and more famous than Neil (which makes the thing the more flattering). It is a school whither many royal scions are sent, and when camera men go down to photograph the new one, Dolman mi. usually takes his place. He has already been presented to newspaper readers as the heir to three thrones. Of course it is the older boys who select, scrape and colour him (if necessary) for this purpose, but they must see something in him that the smaller boys don’t see.

Neil’s next step was almost a bound forward; he got a tanning from the head of the house. This also he took in the proper spirit, boasting indeed of the vigour with which Beverley had laid on. (Thee, also, Beverley, I salute, as the Immensity who raised Neil from the ranks of the lowly, the untanned.)

Quite the amiable, sensible little schoolboy, readers may be saying, but that Neil was amiable or sensible I indignantly deny. He was merely waiting; that shapely but enquiring nose of his was only considering how best to strike once more for leadership. So when the time came he was ready; and he has been striking ever since, indeed, there is nothing that I think he so much resembles as a clock that has got out of hand.

All the other small boys in his house had the same opportunity, but they missed it. It was provided by some learned man (name already tossed to oblivion) who delivered unto them a lecture entitled _Help One Another_. The others behaved in the usual way, cheered the lecturer heartily when he took a drink of water, said “Silly old owl!” as they went out and at once forgot his Message. Not so Neil. With the clearness of vision that always comes to him when anything to his own advantage is toward, he saw that the time and the place and the loved one (himself) had arrived together. Portents in the sky revealed to him that his _métier_ at school was to Help Others. There would be something sublime about it had he not also seen with the same vividness that he must make a pecuniary charge of threepence. He decided astutely to begin with W. W. Daly.

As we write these words an extraordinary change comes over our narrative. In the dead silence that follows this announcement to our readers you may hear, if you listen intently, a scurrying of feet, which is nothing less than Neil being chased out of the story. The situation is one probably unparalleled in fiction.

3. _Tintinnabulum_

Elated by your curiosity we now leave Neil for a moment (say, searching with his foot for a clean shirt among a pile of clothing on the floor), mount to the next landing and enter the second room on the left, the tenant of which immediately dives beneath his table under the impression that we are a fag-master shouting “Boy.” We drag him out and present him to you as W. W. Daly. He is five feet one, biceps 7¾, and would probably kick the beam at about 6½ stone. He is not yet celebrated for anything except for being able to stick pins into his arm up to the head; otherwise a creature of small account who, but for Neil’s patronage, would never have risen to the distinction of being written about, except perhaps by his mother.

W. W.’s first contact with school was made dark by a strange infirmity, an incapacity to remember the Latin equivalent for the word “bell.” Many Latin words were as familiar to him as his socks (perhaps even more so, for he often wears the socks of others), and those words he would give you on demand with the brightness of a boy eager to oblige; but daily did his tutor insist (like one who will have nothing for breakfast but eggs and bacon) on having “bell” alone. Daily was W. W. floored.

It is now that Neil appears with his sunny offer of Help. He took up the case so warmly that he entirely neglected his own studies, which is one of his failings. True he charged threepence (which we shall henceforth write as 3_d._, as it is so sure to come often into these chronicles), but this detracts little from his grandeur, for the mere apparatus required cost him what he calls a bob.

His first procedure was to affix to the bell-pull a card bearing in bold letters the device “Tintinnabulum.” This seems simple but was complicated by there being no bell in W. W.’s room. Neil bought a bell (W. W. being “stony”), and round the walls he constructed a gigantic contrivance of wire and empty ginger-beer bottles, culminating at one end in the bell and at the other end in W. W.’s foot as he lay abed. The calculation, a well-founded one, was that if the sleeper tossed restlessly the bell would ring and he would awake. He was then, as instructed by Neil, first, to lie still but as alert as if visited by a ghost, and to think hard for the word. If, however, it still eluded him he was to turn upon it the electric torch, kept beneath his pillow for this purpose and borrowed at 1_d._ per week from Dolman mi., spot the tricky “Tintinnabulum” in its lair and say the word over to himself a number of times before returning to his slumbers, something attempted, something done to earn a night’s repose.

All this did W. W. conscientiously do, and if there was delay in bringing Tintinnabulum to heel the fault was not that of Neil, but of inferior youths who used to substitute cards inscribed “Honorificabilitudinitatibus,” “Porringer,” “Xylobalsamum,” “Beelzebobulus,” and other likely words.

Eventually he achieved; a hard-won ribbon for his benefactor whom we are about to call Neil for the last time.

There was a feeling among those who had betted on the result that it should be celebrated in no uncertain manner, and a dinner with speeches not being feasible (though undoubtedly he would have liked it), he was re-christened Tintinnabulum, and the name stuck.

So Tintinnabulum let it be henceforth in these wandering pages. Neil the disinherited may be pictured pattering back to me on his naked soles and knocking me up in the night.

“Neil,” I cry (in dressing gown and a candle), “what has happened? Have you run away from school?”

“Rather not,” says the plaintive ghost, shivering closer to the fire, “I was kicked out.”

“By your tutor?” I ask blanching.

“No, by Tintinnabulum. He is becoming such a swell among the juniors that he despises me and the old times. And now he has kicked me out.”

“Drink this hot milk, Neil, and tell me more. What are those articles you are hugging beneath your pyjamas?”

“They are the Bruiser Belt and the score against Juddy’s. He threw them out after me.”

“Don’t take it so much to heart, Neil. I’ll find an honoured place for them here, and you and I will have many a cosy talk by the fire about Tintinnabulum.”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” he says, his hands so cold that he spills the milk, “I would rather talk about the days before there was him.”

Well, perhaps that was what I meant.

Cruel Tintinnabulum.

4. _The Best Parlour Game_

Soon after the events described in our last chapter I knew from Tintinnabulum’s letters that he was again Helping. They were nevertheless communications so guarded as to be wrapped in mystery.

His letters from school tend at all times to be more full of instruction for my guidance than of information about where he stands in his form. I notice that he worries less than did an older generation about how I am to dress when I visit him, but he is as pressing as ever that the postal order should be despatched at once, and firmly refuses to write at all unless I enclose stamped envelopes. On important occasions he even writes my letters for me, requesting me to copy them carefully and not to put in any words of my own, as when for some reason they have to be shown to his tutor. He then writes, “Begin ‘Dear T.’ (not ‘Dearest T.’), and end ‘Yours affec.’ (not ‘Yours affectionately’).”

The mysterious letters that preceded the holidays were concerned with W. W. Daly, whom I was bidden (almost ordered) to invite to our home for that lengthy period, “as his mother is to be away at that time on frightfully important business in which I have a hand.”

I was instructed to write “Dear Mrs. Daly (not “dearest”), I understand that you are to be away on important business during the holidays, and so I have the pleasure to ask you to allow your son to spend the holidays with me and my boy who is a general favourite and very diligent. Come, come, I will take no refusal, and I am, Yours affec.”

I did as I was told, but as I now heard of the lady for the first time I thought it wisest not to sign my letter to her “Yours affec.” Thus did I fall a victim to Tintinnabulum’s wiles.

What could this frightfully important business of Mrs. Daly’s be in which he “had a hand”?

You may say (when you hear of his dark design) that I should at once have insisted on an explanation, but explanations are barred in the sport that he and I play, which is the greatest of all parlour games, the Game of Trying to Know Each Other without asking questions. It is strictly a game for two, who, I suppose, should in perfect conditions be husband and wife; it is played silently and it never lasts less than a life-time. In panegyrics on love (a word never mentioned between us two players), the game is usually held to have ended in a draw when they understand each other so well that before the one speaks or acts the other knows what he or she is going to say or do. This, however, is a position never truly reached in the game, and if it were reached, such a state of coma for the players could only be relieved by a cane in the hand of the stronger, or by the other bolting, to show him that there was one thing about her which he had still to learn.

No, no, these doited lovers when they think the haven is in sight have set sail only. Tintinnabulum and I have made a hundred moves, but we are well aware that we don’t know each other yet; at least, I don’t know Tintinnabulum, I won’t swear that he does not think that he at last knows me. So when he brought W. W. home with him for the holidays it was for me to find out without inquiry how he had been helping Mrs. Daly (and for what sum). He knew that I was cogitating, I could see his impertinent face regarding me demurely, as if we were at a chess board and his last move had puzzled me, which indeed was the situation.

All I knew of her was that she had lately remarried and that W. W. had been invited to spend his holidays with us while she was away on her honeymoon.

Good heavens, could Tintinnabulum have had some Helping part in the lady’s marriage? This boy is beginning to scare me.

I studied him and W. W. at their meals and stole upon them at their play. There could not have been more cherubic faces.

But then I remembered the two cherubic faces I had watched from a bridge.

5. _Tintinnabulum Eats an Apple_

I went to Tintinnabulum’s bedchamber and told him I could not rest until I knew what he had been doing to that lady. In the days of Neil it had been a room of glamour, especially the bed therein, where were performed nightly between 6.15 and 6.30 precisely, the brighter plays of Shakespeare, two actors, but not a sign of them anywhere unless you became suspicious of the hump in the coverlet. Never have the plays gone with greater merriment since Mr. Shakespeare made up “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in his Judith’s hump.

No glamour of course in the room of a public schoolboy, unless it was provided by his discarded raiment, which lay like islands on the floor. However, I found Tintinnabulum in affable humour, sitting tailor-like in bed, dressed in half of his pyjamas, reading a book and eating an apple. He had doubtless found the apple or the book just as he was about to enter the other half of his night attire.

“What could I have been doing to her?” he asked invitingly. (He likes to be hunted.)

The robing of him having been completed, I said with humorous intent, “You may have been luring her into matrimony against her better judgment.”

“She is nuts on him,” Tintinnabulum said, taking my remark seriously.

“But you can’t have had anything to do with it?”

He nodded, with his teeth in the apple.

“Of course this is nonsense,” I said, though with a sinking, “you don’t know her.”

“I didn’t need to know her for a thing like that.”

I tried sarcasm. “I should have thought it was essential.” He shook his head.

“I heard W. W. say to-day,” I continued in the same vein, “that she is spending the honeymoon on the Riviera; you are not implying, are you, that it was you who sent her there?”

“At any rate, if it hadn’t been for me,” he replied, taking a good bite, “she wouldn’t be on the Riviera and there wouldn’t be a honeymoon.”

I became alarmed. “Take that apple out of your mouth and tell me what you mean.”

The mysterious boy of the so open countenance, as he told me the queer tale in bed that night, was superbly unaware of its queerness, and was more interested in standing on his head to see how far his feet would reach up the wall. He far exceeded the record that had been left by Neil.

“I wasn’t the one who made her fond of the chappie,” he said by way of beginning. “She did that bit herself.”

“Very generous of you to give her that amount of choice,” I conceded.

“But she stuck there,” said he. “It was W. W. who told me how she had stuck. W. W. has a sister called Patricia. Their mother’s name is Mildred. That is all I know about her,” he added with great lightness of touch, “except that I worked the marriage.”

This was the first time I had heard of W. W.’s having a sister.

“He doesn’t speak about her much,” Tintinnabulum explained, “because they are twins. I say, don’t let on to him that I told you he was a twin.”

So far as I can gather, W. W. keeps the existence of his girl twin dark from boys in general in case it should make them think less of him.

“He didn’t ask me to help him out till things were in an awful mess at home, and then he showed me some of Patricia’s letters.”

“If I were cross-examining you,” I pointed out, “I should say that your statement is not quite clear. Tell the Jury what you mean, and don’t blow the apple pits at the portrait of your uncle the bishop.”

“I bet you I get him in the calves twice in three shots,” he said.

“An ignoble ambition,” I told him; “answer my question.”

“Well, you see, Patricia had found out all about her mother’s being fond of the man. His name begins with K, but I forget the rest of it.”

I ventured to say that the least he could do for a man whose life he had so strangely altered was to remember his name.

“W. W. will know it,” he said with the carelessness of genius.

“Even now,” I pressed him, “I don’t see where you come in. Did Patricia object to Mr. K.?”

“Oh, no, she thinks no end of him. So does W. W.” He added handsomely, “I wouldn’t have let her get married if they had shied at it.”

“In that case——”

“It wasn’t Patricia that was the bother,” he explained, running the apple up and down his arm like a mouse, “it was Mrs. Daly. You know how funny ladies are about some things.”

“I do not,” I said severely.

“Well, it was about marrying a second time. Mrs. Daly couldn’t make up her mind whether it would be fair to W. W. and Patricia. She knew they liked him all right, but not whether they liked him as much as that.”

“Tell me how Patricia found all this out, and don’t bump about so much.”

“She was watching,” he replied airily. “She is that kind. I daresay the thing wasn’t difficult to find out if all the stuff she said in her letters to W. W. was true. They were awful letters, saying her mother was in anguishes about what was the best thing to do for her progeny. One letter would say, ‘Mr. K. made a lovely impression on mother to-day and I don’t think she can resist much longer.’ Then the next would say, ‘I fear all is up, for they have been crying together in the drawing-room, and when he left he banged the door.’”

“Their mother hadn’t a notion,” Tintinnabulum assured me, making an eye-glass of the apple, “that they knew there was anything in the wind.”

“Nor would they have had any such notion,” I rapped out, “if they had been children of an earlier date.”

“I suppose we are cleverer now,” he admitted. He became introspective. “I expect the war did it. It’s rummy what a difference the war has made. Before the war no one could hold two eggs in his mouth and hop across a pole. Now everyone can do it.”

I requested him to stick to the point.

“Why didn’t Patricia the emancipated go to her mother and inform her that all was well?”

“That is the very thing W. W. and she bickered about in their letters. He was always writing to her to do that, but she said it would be unladylike.”

“Very un-shingled of her to trouble about that,” I got in. “But had she any proposal to make to W. W.?”

“Rather. She was always badgering W. W. to write to their mother saying they knew all and wanted her to go at it blind. She thought it would come better from him, being male. That was what made him come to me in the end. He told me all about it and asked me if I could help.”

“And what was your reply?” I asked with some interest. “Don’t tell me,” I added hurriedly (we were back at the game, you see), “I want to guess. You said immediately, ‘All right’?”

He approved.

“Did it ever strike you,” I enquired curiously, “that you might not be able to help?”

“I can’t remember,” the unfathomable one answered. “I say, would you like to see me do a dive over your head?”

Offer declined.

“You see,” he continued, “W. W. is rather—rather——”

“Rather a retiring boy when there is trouble ahead,” I suggested. “Well, what did you devise?”

“I said I couldn’t do anything until I knew the colour of Patricia’s hair and eyes.”

This took me aback, though it is quite in Tintinnabulum’s manner.

“How could that help?” I had to enquire instead of risking a move.

“I couldn’t get a beginning,” he insisted doggedly, “till I found out that.” (To this day I don’t know what he meant.)

“No difficulty in finding out from W. W.,” I said.

Here I was wrong. W. W. had no idea of the colour of his dear little sister’s eyes but presumed that, as he and she were twins, their eyes must be of the same hue. There followed a scene, undoubtedly worthy of some supreme artist, in which, by the light of a match, Tintinnabulum endeavoured to discover colour of W. W.’s eyes, W. W. being again unable to supply desired information. The match always going out just as Tintinnabulum was on the eve of discovery, it was decided by him that W. W. should write to his twin for particulars (letter dictated by Tintinnabulum). Patricia’s reply was, “Who is it that wants to know? Eyes too expressive to be blue, too lovely to be grey,” and it irritated the two seekers after truth.

“We didn’t ask her what colour they were not,” Tintinnabulum said to me witheringly, “but what colour they were.”

In the end, rather than bother any more with her, they risked putting her eyes down as browny black. This determined, Tintinnabulum apprized his client that Patricia was to write the letter that would make their mother happy. This nearly led to a rupture.

_W. W._ (_sitting_, as they say in the plays, though he might as well be standing): She can’t write a letter to mother when they are living in the same house.

_Tintinnabulum_ (_rising_, because W. W. sat): It would be a letter to you.

_W. W._ (_contemptibly_): That brings me into the thing again.

_Tintinnabulum_: Shut up and listen. The letter isn’t to be posted. Your mother will find it lying open on Patricia’s desk and read it on the sly.

_W. W._ (_nobly_): My mother never does things on the sly.

_Tintinnabulum_ (_comprehensively_): Oh.

_W. W._ (_hedging_): What would the letter say?

_Tintinnabulum_: It would show her that you and Patricia knew what she was after and both wanted her to marry the chappie, and then she could put it back where she found it and never let on that she had seen it and make all her arrangements with a happy heart.

_W. W._: That is what we want, but mother wouldn’t read a letter on the sly.

_Tintinnabulum_ (_after thinking it out when he should have been doing his prep._): Look here, if she is so fussy we can tell Patricia to leave the letter open on the floor as if it had blown there, and then when your mother picks it up to put it back on the desk she can’t help taking a look at it.

_W. W._: Would that not be reading it on the sly?

_Tintinnabulum_ (_with cheerful cynicism_): Not for a woman.

_W. W._ (_depressed_): It will be an awfully difficult letter to write.

_Tintinnabulum_ (_exultant_): Fearfully.

_W. W._: I don’t think Patricia could do it.

_Tintinnabulum_: Not she. I’ll do it. Then you copy my letter and she copies yours.

_W. W._: 3_d._?

_Tintinnabulum_: Tons more than that.